More than words

When I was just a young boy, I lived in a small town. This town was so quintessentially American it's like a parody. I lived in a modern semi-prefab 3 bedroom house with a playroom (what a spoiled only child brat) and right down the street from my friend. I could walk wherever I wanted and for a few years, I caused mischief with the neighborhood boys, explored drainage ditches, played Nintendo and just generally lived the life that all young boys want to live. Perfection, of course, cannot last and so these things changed.

There was a girl at the time who babysat for me. I have no idea how my father found her, but for a while (was it year? a summer? a month?) she was the go to family childcare provider. I can't remember clearly if my mother ever knew her or if my mother was even in this tiny shit town at this point in my life. She may have left for the big city by then, leaving me with my father on the weekends to play inappropriate video games and eat hot dogs.

But this girl, I remember this girl so well. Her name was Tammy Bliss, which in retrospect, is funny because of the meaning of her last name. I want a last name that is a feeling. Anyway, she drove me around the tiny little town in her fucking Chevy Cavalier or what have you and she had this huge key ring. And when she would make turns, the key ring would just jangle against her steering column. I can still picture this image and the corresponding sound. It was almost like a sloshing of ice filled water against a boat. And there was something about the way she drove, she must have been turning every few minutes because I picture the sloshing of these keys like it was yesterday. She drove me to swimming lessons everyday at the community pool. I can't believe I lived in a town so incredibly American that it had a local pool that you could take lessons in and my family threw that right down the drain. This should be the kind of thing you hold on to.

Anyway, so she's driving me everywhere in this podunk town in her stupid car and she has a cassette deck. Everybody back then had a cassette deck. CD players were only for your house, see? So, in the deck, for the whole summer or year or whatever all she ever played was Extreme's "More Than Words." She had like the cassette single which featured the original song, a radio edit and an instrumental version. She knew this song so well. And I came to know it too, after hearing it everyday on the way to swimming lessons. We would sing it, in harmony, some 17 year old high schooler and the 5 year old she was responsible for every day without fail.

I know this happened so often, but I still just picture this one day. She took to me to her high school to pick up something and the halls were all dark tile floors and cold chills and Breakfast Club 80s architecture. I sat in that car, listening to the stupid tape and thinking about my future at this high school. But by then, I knew I wouldn't go there and that I would be at a high school in the big city someday living big dreams and a big life with lots of cool friends. How did I know that? How could a 5 year old be so perceptive? How is it that when I was younger I was more capable of knowing what was really in store for me? I just sat waiting in that car for her to come out and singing those words...

"Saying I love you, is not the words I want to hear you say..."

I remember following the saga of this babysitter years later, picking up snippets of conversation and life tidbits. Working in a factory here, not escaping small town life there, that's where the story ends. What could she be doing now? Is it possible that she is sitting, hands wrapped around her knees like me, thinking about how we used to listen to "More than Words" together? Is it possible that something so meaningless could carry so much meaning for a couple of young kids who grew up in different decades? I want to run down the halls of her high school wearing a varsity jacket back in 1987 and remember what it felt like to be that small town boy. I want to forget everything that has come to define my life as an adult and sit in that car harmonizing those stupid words. I want the clarity I had when I was 5 years old.

"Hold me close, don't ever let me go. More than words is all you ever needed to show."

More than anything, I want her to tell me what the song even meant.

My first audition in Korea

So, last weekend, in a fit of trying to promote myself and actually pursue goals that I may or may not have, I went to 홍대 and dropped off my CDs at a couple of clubs.

I did this, because, as of yet, people have not magically found my Myspace page and just asked me to play. Yes, I am that naive.

One place took my CD and said they'd text me (they did and they want me to play on some random weekday in a couple weeks) and the other scheduled an audition for tonight (Thursday).

Now, that club (Club 빵) said I needed to audition. On a Thursday. At 10pm. This is no small feat considering that I get off of work at 9 every night, live in rural Songpa-gu and Hongdae is an hour away by subway. So, naturally, I agreed. I had to write the guy an email asking him a few questions (how many songs to play, do you have a guitar amp etc.) and had to do the whole thing in Korean. It is a testament to how much better I have gotten since returning that I was able to do so. After all, reading and writing is simple, it's the damn listening I can't do.

So, fast forward to tonight, legs all scurrying down subway stairs lugging this damn guitar and a backpack full of my band, which is basically a computer. I've been rehearsing all week and the thought that keeps going through my head is:

this is gonna be f---ing boring to watch

One guy, singing, playing guitar most of the time and then some music that should theoretically make you want to dance every now and then. Oh, and you can see the laptop just sitting there. It occurred to me I need some people to play with, but the audition was today; what could I do?

I get there and there is a band playing some interestingly Latin-ified Beatles cover that made me smile repeatedly in its sheer audaciousness. I'm thinking: am I playing in front of this crowd? I go ask the guy at the counter what's up and he responds I'll go on in a bit. He speaks no English by the way. I'm looking at these people trying to think how to say, "Do I have to play in front of this crowd?" I could manage "These people will watch me play?" but decide to just deal with it, come what may. I order a beer.

After 20 minutes, the place is pretty much emptied out and I go onstage. Making requests on stage is challenging in another language. I wonder if this translates as I hoped...
"이컴퓨터가 모니터에 너무시끄뤄요." The computer is too loud in the monitors.
"어떤앰프사용해야해요?" Which amp should I use?

So I play two songs, "Air Bud's Lament" and "The Ghosts of Us" (a new 9 minute heartbreak disco epic that will be up soon), for the 6 people in there, and only f--k up occasionally. The response is lukewarm, but the joy of hearing my music on really loud speakers does get me a little turned on. And of course, there is the adrenaline of doing this for the first time since last summer and doing it in Korea.

Afterward, I talk to the guy and he says if I had a band it would be better. It would be more interesting to watch. How much longer will I be here? I should get a band. Basically, the message is, this guy will not let me play alone at this club. At this point, I'm feeling the adrenaline of just having done something new and challenging, and its mixing with the disappointment of realizing my live act is boring.

My conclusion...I need to get a couple people to help me play live. Now I feel like I should tell this other club that wants me to play on a random Thursday or whatever that I'm just some white guy with a laptop and guitar that will bore the shit out of the older Korean male club owners in the audience. And considering that will probably be all that sees me play, I'm in trouble.

One last Saturday

"Spit it out," he said, sweat dripping off his brow slightly. At first, it was funny, but now things were getting out of hand.

Her tiny sticky fingers gripped the little toy ever more tightly as she pushed it further into her mouth. The table was smeared with pancake syrup and orange juice and her fingers were so dirty.

"This isn't funny," he laughed, in an effort to cover up how unfunny the whole thing was. It was like she didn't even understand him.

Not laughing, she continued pushing the long leg of her doll further towards the abyss of her lungs. The man knew, as did she, that once it got there, there was no turning back.

Her first gagging sound was innocent enough. The man tried to brace himself for what he knew he would hear and tried coaxing her yet. "Come on, stop playing around," he said, but somewhere inside he knew it was all in vain.

The sound of the toy scraping flesh tearing her fragile throat as she prodded and pushed, all in effort for what he didn't quite understand.

Her eyes were watering. She was determined. So was he, though. He would not allow this to happen. Not on his watch. Not on a Saturday.

Her precious young hand made one final push for glory, just as the man sprang from his seat and lunged to prevent the busted off plastic doll appendage from making its home in the girl's neck; but he was too late, and it stuck, lodged in a way that only the most skilled surgeon could remove.

The man ran through his options quickly as a dog barked outside. The sound permeated his mind and he couldn't think straight. The girl's face was turning blue as the room filled with sound of faint choking and gasping, rising at once over the sound of the annoying dog. He could reach into her mouth and try to retrieve it, but this might fail, or worse, hurt the girl more. He could call for help, but this might take too long. In the clamor of his thought, in the haze of his crisis, he neglected to see that his very inaction might be the most dangerous of all choices and that fucking doll foot made its way deeper and deeper into her esophagus until he was left with no choices whatsoever.

When the man finally realized what was happening, it was too late. The girl was slumped back in her seat, eyes rolled back, a tiny tear dripping from each one. The man, exhausted from thinking, had nothing to do. Passing a cursory glance over her limp, small body, he got up to fix himself a cup of coffee and consider calling the doctor. He thought that it would be hard to explain what had happened to a third party, that no one could understand, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that it was her own damn fault.

Let it be our resolution

On the eve of a new year, it is customary to make proclamations and wishes and demands of yourself. Many gather, drunk, to proclaim that the next year will be different; that it will be full of change, that it will be the year you wake up and start to do all the things have put off for so long. I, too, have made this mistake.

It is a year, in college, I cannot remember when, I gather at a friend's house to celebrate this event. It is a strange time. We are not friends as before, but we don't possess enough new friends to necessitate a special new celebration. You might say we are "in transition."

Not quite 21, I coerce my father into giving me some assorted drinks for the night, the crowning achievement of which is a full bottle of wine given to him by some locals; I put it in a Nalgene bottle to avoid to detection. In this land of seeming contradictions, I am old enough to drive but not old enough to drink.

I arrive at my friends house and we fall into old habits. "Let's just try something out," we say.
"Let's just play around with music for a while," we think.

We do what we are accustomed to, but in our new life, these things that once worked no longer do. Once able to connect like few others could, we now fail pathetically. In his basement, we sit, mum and bored.

"We could drink the wine," I say.

We drink it all, quickly.

"Let's go for a walk," he says.

We journey, in the freezing December (no, January!) cold to places we have seen many times before. It was in this cold that we once tied his dog, old and blind, to a sled full of our belongings to drag into the wilderness. This led to a fight with another dog in the yard over a half-decaying deer head. It's better not to think about these things.

We journey, over grass and Queen Anne's lace, past what were once islands, into a sand pit. It was in this scene that we were once yelled at for playing paintball with other friends; scolded like the children that we were and put in our place. We long for someone to put us in our place again and tell us what it is we should be doing. But this will not happen, for we are now adults. In my Nalgene bottle, I hold the key to adulthood and the forgetting of all childhood problems. I take a drink and offer it to my friend. It is the least I can do.

We journey, into the depths of this sand pit, like some forgotten wasteland in the middle of all our nostalgia and memories. The wind whips up and we sip on that bottle, I shout that it all feels so good and I can really remember what it was like to be young. As I write this, I am devastated to know that I had such futile and naive feelings even so long ago. It means that I have been dead longer than I thought.

We finish the wine and walk back in that biting cold, remembering, talking and feeling like we used to. I know when we get back to his house it is going to be over. It will be just another New Year's and just another night of empty promises and dreams.

We curl up in the living room and watch a movie we used to really love. I can't quite connect with it in the same way. The drink is getting to me. I walk into the bathroom, and in the still silence of that New Year's night, I empty my stomach of all the wine we shared. Walking back into the darkness of the living room, and the faint glow of the television, I suggest it is time for bed. I'm getting too old for this shit.

In a place just like this

It is a cold night tonight. It's probably 20 degrees. But at least there is no wind. I've said it before, but that wind comes down from Siberia and it will chill you to the bone. There is nothing colder.

It is late when I leave my friend's house on the other side of town. I am tired and my head hurts and I briefly consider taking a taxi. It would only be 3,000won and would cut 18 minutes or so off my journey, but I opt to walk. The biting cold is what I need to wake me up; to put some feeling back into my mind and my body.

I walk, headphones on, only partially recognizing what I pass. I have passed these things so many times they have ceased to be foreign or novel, they are just life. After all, the end of novelty is the start of reality. I forget that I am in a foreign country that I am doing something abnormal that I am not back in Michigan. I forget these things often.

The things you see when you walk late at night here are more unique than my circumstances. Drunk friends stumbling in the street, arguing loudly and helping each other along, a husband and wife in the midst of a verbal altercation about to turn physical, a lone elderly woman pushing a baby stroller full of dismantled cardboard boxes and sobbing LOUDLY after passing me...these things are just images and sounds, isolated from my existence. I see them, but I don't truly experience them. I am walking, unmolested and unreal, home.

A police car passes, sirens silently flashing but no sound to remind one it is there.

Many of the buildings are unlit and closed, strange for this city, but perhaps not strange for a Sunday night. Even the popular 24 hour barbecue restaurant is completely empty, a feat I'm not sure I've ever witnessed. I cross the large street at the crosswalk, but it is unnecessary: in the middle of the road I pause to see that no cars are to be found in either direction on the 6 lane road. I am alone.

Coming nearer to my house, the isolation I feel is striking. I can't hear anything with my headphones on and I barely sense that I am coming upon the scene of accident. I am utterly surprised to see a car, headlights glaring, stopped in the middle of a roundabout very near my house. I suppress the natural curiosity that surrounds events like these and continue my walk, stoically. It is then that I notice there is a victim, lying on the ground. Police are scampering and random people are milling about. There is much shouting in Korean and then I hear it. Someone is speaking English.

I am too shocked to react. Who is that? What are they doing here? They sound in trouble. In a quick moment of horror, I realize the person lying on the ground is shouting in English.

As I near the scene, the police take notice of me and begin approaching me. They call to me in Korean, but I am too confused to reply. The man in the road has now noticed me and he calls to me too, in English.

"Sir, please come here. I can't explain to them what has happened. I need your help."

The word echoes in my brain. Help.

The police and man are staring at me as I continue to walk around them. I can see my home, my bed, my warm floor, all within close proximity. The man is still calling to me. His eyes are begging me to help him. I cannot forget those eyes.

Adjusting the headphone in my ear, I continue walking past the commotion towards my house, not looking back. Tonight, it is only sleep that I need.

So, you're 19 then?

This Sunday, I found myself at a small mallish sort of thing with a couple of friends. Entering the fourth floor, which was reserved for men's clothes, we scuttled around not finding much. Passing a booth, we remarked on the beauty of the woman working there. In a few minutes, we found ourselves back at this store and buying clothes. I was conscious of a certain flirtation with this woman. She touched my arm and remarked about my Korean, sense of humor and in what was perhaps an attempt at encouraging jealousy, Micah's good style. Nonetheless, I felt a certain something. Micah and Richard started to go down the escalator after our purchases were made and I felt that classic feeling:
"This girl is attractive. Do something."
"I can't do anything. What do I ever do?"
"This should be different. Say something."
"I am not outgoing with the opposite sex. Don't do anything and regret it for the next 2 hours."
And then I thought of my friend Josh.

Josh approaches members of the opposite sex without hesitation. I want to be like him. On Sunday, I was.

Richard and Micah embarked on the escalator and I said, "Hold on, I'll be there in a moment."

Me: "You speak English well."
Her: "Oh, thanks." (awkward pause)
Me: "Where did you learn?"
Her: "I just studied in high school."
Me: "Well, I study Korean. We could help each other."
Her: "That's a good idea."
Me: " Okay, let me get your number."
Score (I think).

Fast foward to last night. After some text messages, I have a date with this mysterious girl. I can't remember what she looked like, all I remember is that she was incredibly beautiful and Richard kept whispering in my ear, "Oh my god she's so hot." As if she didn't understand English.

We head to a coffee shop and it becomes apparent she actually wants me to help her with her English. Well, that could change I think. After about 10 minutes, I discover she's a freshman in college. To be exact, she's 19 years old. She is majoring in jewelry design. I am editing a speech she's writing to introduce herself. Her teacher has told her to be confident and immodest. She is far from humble as a result.

I look at the rings she wears and point out one that has a sort of combination look looking thing on it. She says she likes rings a lot because she's so into jewelry. I ask what the numbers mean. She says they are her boyfriend's birthday.

Fantastic. Great. Why am I actually pursuing a 19 year old anyway? Am I pursuing one, let alone one in a relationship in her first year of college with nothing in common with me?

But the point stands, I asked her for her number. This is not minor. This is exceptional. She is incredibly beautiful, but not a match for me in any sense of the word.

If I were a body of water, I would be a small stream or a puddle at best.

The city

The city is a massive stretch of lights from a distance. Through the steamed-up window of the bus, you can see the lights stretching as far as you can see, only blocked by the occasional mountain poking up through the valley that is the city. You know you are getting close when the bus starts stopping.

This is traffic. And it is part of life in the city. The highways and roads that were meant to be the arteries and lifeblood of the city have taken to transporting poison and smog and are choking the city and its inhabitants to death. We sit, still, waiting for the next hiccup of movement to propel us slowly towards the city, knowing all the while, the further in we get, the harder it will be to get out again.

The tall apartment buildings, so functional, so utilitarian; I remind myself that they were built by human hands. The whole city was, but it has taken on a life of its own since then. Each brick paver in the myriad sidewalks, each tree, each road and bridge was painstakingly built to create the city from the old one, and it is now our home.

I will never know the whole city, it is far too large for that. I stay in my corner with the people and places I know. Occasionally, we venture further into the massive beast but mostly we stick to the well-traveled routes and summer homes we have created for ourselves.

I am struck by the thought that the city cares nothing for me, would not care or cease functioning if I disappeared tomorrow by way of death, abduction or transportation. Yet, like a lover scorned, I cannot turn away.